It Turns Out Half The People You Think Are Your Friends Aren't Feeling It

Sorry.

Do you consider yourself a warm, likeable person with a large circle of friends?

We're sorry to be the bearers of bad news, but you're probably wrong.

Not about being warm and likeable – we're sure you're great.

But your circle of genuine friends – that is, those who reciprocate your feelings – probably isn't as big as you think it is.

In a recent study, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology together with colleagues at Tel Aviv University found there's a good chance we're not very good at determining who considers us part of their own squad.

The research team surveyed a group of 84 university students, asking them to rate everyone in the class on a scale of five to zero, where five indicated a best friend, and zero meant they were strangers. They also had to estimate where their classmates had ranked them on the scale.

After analysing the data from that and six friendship surveys from 600 students in Israel, Europe and the US, the researchers found that while almost 95 per cent of participants assumed their feelings would be reciprocated (call them optimists), only half returned the sentiment.

"If you think someone is your friend, you expect him to feel the same way. But in fact that's not the case — only 50 percent of those polled matched up in the bidirectional friendship category," lead author Dr Erez Scmueli said in a media release.

"It turns out that we're very bad at judging who our friends are," he added.

The researchers suspect it's hard to hear because it's at odds with the way we see ourselves within the social landscape – and interferes with our perception of how much influence we actually have.

"These findings suggest a profound inability of people to perceive friendship reciprocity, perhaps because the possibility of non-reciprocal friendship challenges one's self image," the authors wrote.

So while it's kind of disheartening, there's no need to rush into that Facebook cull just yet – if nothing else, it's a good opportunity to reflect on your genuine friendships. You may just fare better for it in the long run.

It Turns Out Half The People You Think Are Your Friends Aren't Feeling It

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